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{
    "id": 1134247,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1134247/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 53,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. M. Kajwang’",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13162,
        "legal_name": "Moses Otieno Kajwang'",
        "slug": "moses-otieno-kajwang"
    },
    "content": "should be mandatory for a Senator and a county government and the leadership from a county to sit down and review the priorities in that BPS for it to inform the decision of the House. The Committee on Finance and Budget has made certain recommendations, which includes additional support for construction of county headquarters. A Senator out of their own volition can at times decide that their county needs headquarters and conditional grant without getting instructions from the governors. The governors are not keeping us informed and they are not advising us. They go and sit at Intergovernmental Budget and Economic Council (IBEC) with the Deputy President and make some agreements then leave the Senate to do the heavy pulling as far as the resources to counties are concerned. Mr. Speaker, Sir, we have always said that this money is not taken to the governors in their personal capacity. This money is supposed to go out to the people in the counties. Despite the fact that we have seen conversations at IBEC that have agreed that we sent Kshs370 billion, it is the responsibility of this Senate to size and cost the needs of devolved functions. If the Senate believes that county governments should get more, then let it be. Mr Speaker, Sir, the theme of the BPS is interesting. It is “Accelerating Economic Recovery for Improved Livelihood.” You know when these guys were doing this budget, they had a post-COVID-19 thinking. We now know that there is nothing like a post- COVID-19 era. We are going to be in a COVID-19 era for as long as God knows. One would have expected that a COVID-19 budget would prioritize two things; lives and livelihoods. When it comes to lives, the interventions that the Government intends to put in place when it comes to healthcare should be clear. Since healthcare is devolved function, we should have seen an increment in allocation of money that goes to counties because they are the ones who offer primary health services. We should have seen a reflection. We should have seen an increment in the amount of resources that are being dedicated to things like mental health. The Government has not prioritized lives in this BPS yet we are still in a COVID-19 pandemic era. The other aspect would be on livelihoods. Since this is a BPS, we should have heard the Government saying that foreclosures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic shall be mitigated. That is what civilized governments are doing. They are doing foreclosure protection. Some governments are doing pay cheque protection. Some governments are making sure that if you have taken a mortgage and you are unable to pay because of the pandemic, there is an action plan initiated by the Government to ease the pain. We are seeing none of that. Mr Speaker, Sir, even for students who have to pay the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) loans, we are not seeing any policy proposals that there are going to be rebates, so that there is some breathing time for them. Every other day, when you look at our daily newspapers, especially on Mondays, the pages are full of foreclosures and auction notices. Many of these are businesses that"
}